Screened & Heard

March 31, 2014

Bexley native and
How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor is featured today on comedian Marc Maron's WTF
podcast, an interview show notorious for coaxing vulnerable disclosures from even the most
tight-lipped of celebrities.

The hour-and-a-half-long chat addresses Radnor's evolution as an actor, writer and
director — as well as his growth as a person — from the moment he found out he'd gotten a
gig on a CBS series to today, the day the long-running sitcom airs its final episode.

"I think about the fact that a 16-year-old boy in Ohio decided what I was going to do for my
life," Radnor told Maron while explaining his involvement with high-school musicals and the
Columbus Children's Theatre.

"I always try to remember the 16-year-old me — like how psyched he would be," Radnor said.
"He would be pretty psyched. I think I exceeded his dreams on some level ... that's a pretty cool
thing."

Maron had only seen three episodes of
How I Met Your Mother before his interview with Radnor.

"I didn't see me not knowing really anything about the show he's been doing for 9 years as an
obstacle to us talking," Maron wrote in his weekly email newsletter. "I was right. It wasn't. We
talked about it but the guy's got a lot more going than just that show. He's a grounded, thoughtful
dude with a tight work ethic and I loved talking to him."

New listeners of WTF, take note: Maron typically opens his podcasts with lengthy, personal
introductions, so the actual interview starts at 17:41 into the audio file.

March 27, 2014

Cincinnati brothers Matt and Tom Berninger are separated by 9 years, disparate work ethics, and
rock stardom — the elder brother, Matt Berninger, is the lead singer of indie act The
National.

In
Mistaken for Strangers, which joins 12 other films in the Gateway Film Center's Columbus
Documentary Week kicking off this weekend, director Tom Berninger creates what he calls "a blend of
a documentary about the band and a shaggy self-portrait."

A metal-head who doesn't quite understand the success of his brother's band, Tom travels with
The National on its biggest tour, working as a roadie but filming along the way, capturing a tour
documentary that attempts to address the relationship between "brothers with different fates."

The Gateway Film Center's first screening of
Mistaken for Strangers is at 10 p.m. tonight. For a full list of showtimes and to learn
more about the other films screening for Columbus Documentary Week, visit
GatewayFilmCenter.com.

March 26, 2014

After bizarrely announcing the release date of their next album
through Mike
Tyson's Twitter account, Akron duo The Black Keys released this track,
Fever — their first since their 2011 album
El Camino.

March 25, 2014

How I Met Your Mother star and Bexley native Josh Radnor visited Ohio Wesleyan University
last week to address about 400 students about his life and career,
reports
DelawareO.com.

The Kenyon alumnus spoke about writing his own films, starring in a long-running CBS sitcom (now
approaching its series finale) and how his Ohio upbringing has affected his work.

Speaking of his Ohio upbringing, here's a 1993 Dispatch file photo of Radnor (with Rachel Emmers, left, and Marianne Timmons ) in a Columbus Children's Theatre production of Into the Woods, in which he played the
Baker.

"If I’ve learned anything in my acting journey, it’s been that kindness is a premium and
character matters," Radnor said. "I never gave up being from the Midwest in my values."

March 21, 2014

Wes Anderson has a new movie, and you know what that means. Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and Jason
Schwartzman will be involved in a tale involving peculiar storylines and idiosyncratic
characters.

The latest effort, set in the imaginary country of Zubrowka, tells the story of a hotel
concierge (Ralph Fiennes) at a European hotel, his relationship with a young hotel employee (Tony
Revolori) and their quest to locate a Renaissance painting alongside a fight for a large family
fortune.

While the Anderson hallmarks are in place for
The Grand Budapest Hotel, it seems like the plot and character development were not
completely thought through, according to critic Peter Tonguette. There simply isn't enough time in
the movie to explain the whole story.

"The bewildering plot, with improbability upon improbability in a completely concocted milieu,
is a cinematic sugar high: It is entertaining to watch as it unfolds, but its pleasures are
transient," Tonguette said in his review.

Blood Ties is a stylized remake of a French crime thriller. Starring Clive Owen, Billy
Crudup, Marion Cotillard and Mila Kunis, the film brings to life the intriguing story of an
ex-convict and tormented police officers on the other side. The action explodes in some of
the car chases set in the Big Apple borough of Brooklyn.

Tonguette held director's performance in high regard with his review.

"Director Guillaume Canet injects life into the familiar elements in an Americanized version of
a 2008 French film," Tonguette said. "Yes, we are reminded of
Dirty Harry or
Prince of the City — but mainly because
Blood Ties deserves to be mentioned in their company."

"This is a large-scale vision of violence, vice and avarice — one that we won’t soon
forget."

March 18, 2014

Singer Cassadee Pope, headed to Columbus for a concert next week, took to Twitter and YouTube
yesterday to announce that there will be a new music filmed at her concert at The Bluestone.

"Hey Columbus, I can't wait to see all of you Thursday, March 27 ... and we've got an
exciting surprise," she says in
her YouTube message. "We're going to be
filming a Live from the Bluestone music video, and I want all of you to be in it."

Pope came to public attention as the first female winner of NBC's "The Voice," and she followed
that up with her first album, Frame by Frame, which made its debut at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Country
Albums chart.

Her debut single, “
Wasting All These Tears,” was certified
platinum this month, making her the first solo female country artist to reach that milestone since
Taylor Swift in 2006.

Pope will be spending the summer opening for Tim McGraw on his Sundown Heaven Town Tour,
which includes a performance at the Jamboree in the Hills event in July near Belmont, Ohio.

March 14, 2014

If you had forgotten about
Veronica Mars (and dedicated
fans most certainly had not), director Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell have
resurrected the television series on the Silver Screen. The series, which ran from 2004 until 2007
on UPN and its cousin The CW, featured a high-school and college aged detective working on cases
and love in equal measure.

The movie, which raised $5.7 million through a Kickstarter project, appealed to fans because of
its writing and portrayals of the compelling Bell as a believable high school outsider. The movie
brought back a number of the supporting cast from the television series.

While the premise is strong and the fan base is somewhat rabid, the production is geared too
much toward those that have been there since day one rather than the people who would be introduced
to the characters in theaters,
according to critic Peter Hartlaub.

"The movie is practically gift-wrapped for fans, many of whom will actually see themselves
on-screen. (Being an extra in the movie was
one of the Kickstarter lures.)," Hartlaub said in his review.

"Newcomers will be less pleased to discover a product that resembles a TV show. The inside jokes
and receiving line of nudge-wink cameos only adds to the small-screen feel."

March 07, 2014

Sometimes, Hollywood looks to capitalize on the success of a movie by releasing a sequel, and
audiences are left asking why. While
300: Rise of an Empire is the type of movie that viewers enjoyed the first time around,
the silly story, substandard acting and tidal wave of computer effects follow too much of the model
that made Part 1 successful, according to critic Scott Gowans.

The movie returns to the Persian/Spartan conflict, and the stylistic nods to Frank Miller and
Lynn Varley's graphic novel series. The story is more historical fiction than history. Viewers
expecting gallons of gore, chiseled guys that look like they came straight off the runway and
cheesy motivational speeches should find what they are looking for in spades with
300: Rise of an Empire.

The inexperience of the director and writer is clearly evident in the movie, Gowans said.

"The project seems to be the creation of cocky young men who were given a pile of money and told
to have fun with it — sparing no expense on computer-generated images," Gowans said. "Every shot
strives to be more dramatic than the one before, giving all scenes a numbing sameness in which
nothing stands out."

March 04, 2014

Era-specific fashions and set designs are, of course, part of the fun of a cinematic period
piece. And when film crews for such movies settle into a region for a shoot, they may also end up
mining that area's antique stores for props.

That happened late last month at the Ohio Valley Antique Mall in Fairfield, Ohio, where prop
buyers from the
high-profile production
Carol loaded up on 65 pieces of furniture and other odds and ends for the movie.